A Thanksgiving in London

What's better than a hand turkey on Thanksgiving? Surely nothing, you might say. Unless it's a Pilgrim-hatted cardinal.

I'll vote for the cardinal.

(Look, I made a hat!)



This is my first Thanksgiving away from family and friends, so, if you'll indulge me, I decided to make my own list to celebrate the day, London-style.

• I'm thankful that today it was 55 degrees and sunny in London, and that I got to take a walk in the beautiful autumn leaves.

• I'm thankful continuously that I have the opportunity to study here, and that I have a job and a family that allow me to fulfill my dream to live in England.

• I'm thankful that I have supportive family and friends at home who have made a tremendous effort to make sure I don't feel lonely or forgotten, both today and all the other days I've been here.

• I'm thankful to have found a website streaming the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in real time. Right now there's a marching band playing a medley of "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

• I'm thankful that my best friend has found love.

• I'm thankful that my artistic abilities stretch just far enough to make a tiny Pilgrim hat. (If you don't think it looks like a Pilgrim hat, I'll only accept verbal complaints. What was that? I can't hear you. The Atlantic Ocean's in the way. You can tell me when you come visit.)

• I'm thankful for dorky/awesome theatre friends who immediately recognized the Sondheim reference I made at the start of this post.

• I'm thankful to see so many amazing things every time I walk out the door that I start to look past them. Can you imagine? So much history, culture, and charm crowded together...I can't even see it all anymore.

• I'm thankful that the British Royal Mail is so unreliable that the second half of my birthday present from my sister arrived today and became a lovely Thanksgiving gift.

• I'm thankful to have made fantastic friends here who I would never have gotten to meet if I'd stayed at home. There are lots of reasons they're fantastic, but I'll submit this picture (posted by another American in celebration of today) as an obvious one: 

Ooh, look! There goes Pikachu in the parade!

• I'm thankful that my cat has a good home while I'm gone (Pilgrim kitty made me think of Lucy). And I'll be thankful to get her back next year.

• I'm thankful that tonight I get to go to class and discuss both a fascinating poem and a novel that I found truly beautiful. While I sometimes get bogged down in reading, I am constantly grateful to have intellectually stimulating conversations about literature at least twice a week. (Discussing the same novel two-three times a year for a decade doesn't lead to many new ideas, it turns out.) There is so much new literature to read; I'm glad to have the chance to do it. 

• I'm thankful for my friends and family. I know I said it before, but isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about? The emails, chats, Skype sessions, Facebook messages, tweets, etc. have reminded me that I have wonderful people at home and that technology makes the distance (though not the time difference) much less.

Today I accidentally slept through breakfast (which always means the day begins with profanity - never a good start), and I'll miss the Thanksgiving dinner planned tonight in my dorm because of class (there are enough Americans living here to justify the attempt at it). But spending part of an afternoon collecting leaves bigger than my hand and making a tiny Pilgrim hat isn't too bad. More days should include elements of whimsy. For now, I'll enjoy the rest of the parade with a cup of tea. Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

A Celebration

Today is the opening performance for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Andover High School.

There is no accomplishment of which I'm prouder than that theatre program - and to all the people who helped it along the way, I'll be eternally grateful. It would be easy at this point to sound a bit melancholy about the amazing experience I'm missing today. Instead, I'm so very excited for all the students involved who I know will be truly fantastic in this show and will keep the theatre thriving. And to the two former students who stepped up to take the reins this year, I couldn't be more proud or delighted. There is no other way I'd have it.

In the spirit of celebration, I'm going to a friend's flat for dinner (rather than moping in my dorm room alone). Andover Theatre, all that you are and will become is in my thoughts tonight and I'll toast to your success.

Break a leg!

A London Patchwork

Monday: Halloween and the Jack the Ripper Tour.
Tuesday: Christmas Lights turned on in Oxford Street.

Anyone else feel like we skipped November in there? No? Must just be me.

You know when you're walking down a tremendously busy street and you feel a little like cattle being herded? That was Oxford Street on Tuesday as the lights were about to be turned on. While standing in a crush of people, trying not to lose my friend Ane or get trampled, I looked up and saw Eric Whitacre crossing about fifteen feet in front of me. (If you don't know his music, shame on you, but you can find him here.) If you've spent any time in big cities, you know that they are loud, and in this ginormous crowd on Oxford Street, it was especially loud. So when I saw Eric Whitacre, I thought I said "Oh my God, that's Eric Whitacre" at a totally reasonable volume. Judging by his reaction (head snapping around to see me staring with my jaw dropped), I was a little louder than I intended. He was very kind to come over and talk to me, but I'll admit I would rather have shown a bit more poise. There is some comfort in the fact that I'm certainly not the first choir geek to react like that when faced with him.

Saturday was Bonfire Night. This was fun (though we didn't see Guy Fawkes burned in effigy). My favorite thing about spending extended time in London is finding all the cool neighborhoods I have never seen as a tourist. For the fireworks we went to Primrose Hill. There is not an official fireworks show there (but there were a awful lot of unofficial fireworks going off all around us), but the hill offers a really great panoramic view of London so we could see several displays in the distance. People who planned better than we did made an evening out of it, packing picnics, champagne, and the like, but we contented ourselves with going to find dinner after the fireworks (I was actually pretty proud that I thought to bring a blanket). If you don't know the story of Guy Fawkes, this site sums it up pretty succinctly. They also sell shirts: Guy gear and Fawkesy Lady wear. I've been giggling about that for about ten minutes.

Princess Amneris Gold Atlas Sandals
(designed for the Royal Opera, London)

For this weekend's cultural outing, we branched out of the typical museums a bit. Instead we went to "Shoes for Show: the Sculptural Art of High Heels." The only bad thing I have to say about this show is that it wasn't big enough, but with shoes from 1850 through 2011, it was certainly interesting. But perhaps the most interesting part of the day came when we tried to get to the gallery in the first place. Four different train lines were down today for scheduled maintenance, including every line that went to the three closest stops to our destination. We got as close as we could and then walked the rest of the way. London is endlessly fascinating to me: the architectural variety (buildings hundreds of years old next to twenty-first century offices), the diversity of the people, and the charming stretches of shops and restaurants interspersed with the residential areas are just a few of the things I adore. Sometimes I think wistfully of streets laid out on a seemingly logical grid, but the unique possibilities when streets intersect at all manner of angles are fantastic. Today we wandered for a few hours, saw parts of London we've never seen but to which I can't wait to return, visited a gallery show of amazing high heels, found a craft market and vintage clothing sale by accident, and generally enjoyed the fresh air and autumn weather. That is an exhilarating day in a fabulous city.

Fawkesy Lady. Good stuff.

Diagon Alley!

Unexpected perk of the Jack the Ripper tour: we walked through the alley where many of the exterior shots for Diagon Alley were filmed. The tour guide told us it was coming and I thought "um, ok." But when we walked in I totally geeked out because it was so completely Diagon Alley.

I'll go back during the day and get better pictures. I was simply too excited not to say something about it now.

Oh, and the Jack the Ripper tour? Gruesome. The tour guide has a projector and at various points he projects on the wall or ground sketch artist renderings or actual photographs of the victims where they were found.

After listening to the description of the third woman being sliced and then "splayed open with her intestines drawn out and trailed over her right shoulder," the man behind me whispered (loudly) to his companion "I don't want the verb 'splayed' to ever be used to describe my body." That lightened the appalling scene for me somewhat because I was trying not to laugh, but it was still pretty horrific.

That said, it's a fun tour. I would recommend it. But when the guide says "if you're squeamish you might want to look away," BELIEVE HIM.